User talk:Isabellemcelentano

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Wikipedia Assignment Reflection
Wikipedia is one of the most successful online communities of our time, an extraordinary fact when one considers that it is supported entirely by donations and volunteers. With such intense commitment to the community, these users scared me as I set out to create a page for World War II veteran and war crimes prosecutor Edward F. Lyons, Jr. As a newcomer, I didn’t know the extensive policies, guidelines, norms or language well enough to interact on pages other than my own. Overall I found the intensity of Wikipedia’s heavily committed users and numerous guidelines to be overwhelming, somewhat limiting my experience. Upon reflection, however, I found that my fears which inhibited my further participation in the community were not brought about by Wikipedia or Wikipedians themselves, but by my pre-existing expectations of users in online communities in general.

Wikipedians' Normative and Needs-Based Commitment
My experience revealed that Wikipedians demonstrate strong normative and needs-based commitment to the community which discouraged my participation as a newcomer. One study of motivation among Wikipedia editors found that the majority of users were motivated to participate by "fun" and "ideology". A desire for fun can be considered a needs-based commitment, which is experienced when “an individual has an attachment to an online community that depends on the net benefits that people experience from the community”. Along with "fun" being a possible benefit from participating in the community, thus increasing commitment among such users, Wikipedians also acquire specific skills by practicing regular editing. The curation of these skills, in turn, strengthens commitment. In their evidence-based book on social design of successful online communities, Robert E. Kraut and Paul Resnick said, “Specific benefits indicating those who have made an important contribution, or an asset, can generate needs-based commitment…Skills are also considered assets of a community—there is more turnover in easy-to-use sites because ease of use reduces investments in learning how to use the site.” This difficult barrier to entry--learning the Wiki-language--may increase commitment among those who have mastered these skills or have joined Wikipedia for "fun", but discourage and decrease commitment among newcomers who haven’t invested the time to learn this new language, such as myself. Another factor in the strong needs-based commitment experienced by some Wikipedians is the fact that the community ultimately has no successful competitors. Kraut and Resnick also noted this phenomenon's effect on needs-based commitment: "The net benefit that people need to achieve to decide to stay in a community depends upon the alternatives that are available.” Overall, Wikipedia generates strong needs-based commitment by meeting the needs of its members who participate for the net benefits of fun and the acquisition of new skills. The motivation to participate on Wikipedia for ideological reasons can be considered a form of normative commitment to the community. Normative commitment is “a feeling that one has obligations to the community, to be loyal and act on its behalf,” and is stronger among “production communities”, like Wikipedia. A user who has a preexisting commitment to the goal of the community may feel stronger normative commitment. For example, someone who has a strong commitment to open-source information may find themselves with normative commitment to the Wikipedia community. Those who listed “ideology” as their primary motivation for contributing to Wikipedia also demonstrate how normative commitment is deepened through the “widely shared norm of reciprocity.” Indirect generalized reciprocity, characterized by the feeling of obligation to “pay it forward” to somebody, even if it’s not the person who originally helped you, also demonstrates the ideological motivation to contribute to Wikipedia.

As a newcomer that was being given a grade for my work and participation on Wikipedia, I didn’t have the same normative or needs-based commitment that long-time Wikipedians did. The fear of criticism or correction of my edits made me stand back and observe the workings of Wikipedians before diving into my own article. With very little knowledge of the language and a lack of initial commitment to the community and its cause, I found that the overt commitment of Wikipedia's 134,479 regular editors partially inhibited my further participation.

Wikipedians' Rigid Compliance with Community Guidelines, Policies, and Norms
Along with the evident commitment of Wikipedians, I also found Wikipedia's numerous policies, guidelines and normative behaviors intimidating to me as a newcomer. An important factor in informing users of community norms is by explicitly stating and displaying them in the community. However, Wikipedia has distinct policies, guidelines, essays and norms, making everything somewhat confusing. Joseph Reagle described each as follows: "Essays, nonauthoritative pages that may contain useful insights; guidelines, actionable norms approved by general consensus; and policy, much the same but ‘more official and less likely to have exceptions'." Wikipedia also outlines its collaborative norms in what the community calls the Five Pillars.

Kraut and Resnick noted that this technique for encouraging voluntary compliance, explicitly stating and prominently displaying guidelines, tends to be more effective with "insiders who care about the community’s health and their own standings within the community." They identified several factors which increase voluntary compliance, among them “commitment to the community, legitimacy of norms...and expectations about rewards for compliance or sanctions for noncompliance." With an underdeveloped sense of commitment to the community; a lack of comprehension regarding the strong and extensive community policies, guidelines, and norms; and an expectation of sanctions for noncompliance, I was less likely to be bold in the community unless directed to do so. The most paralyzing of these factors was the "high probability that norm violations [would] be detected" ensured by Wikipedia's anyone can edit community design. Kraut and Resnick observed that "displaying feedback of members to others increases members’ knowledge of community norms and compliance with them”,  however these displays of feedback that I noticed on others’ talk pages inquiring about and pointing out flaws in their edits discouraged me from making bold edits at all. This direct calling out and displaying of appropriate/inappropriate behavior put me on guard, because I am used to people assuming the worst of and being the worst users in online communities.

Wikipedians' Good Faith Collaboration
Wikipedia’s unique collaborative culture and norm of assuming good faith was a new experience for me, since I am used to assuming the worst of those who participate online. As Reagle noted, "Online communities often suffer the effects of Godwin’s Law: as a discussion continues, someone is bound to make an unfavorable comparison to Hitler or Nazis.” Reagle also noted, however, that this pessimistic view of online community members can be damning: “Be warned that whatever we assume may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We AssumeGoodFaith as a way of creating good faith, but assuming indifference or stupidity will encourage those modes as well.” By bringing my own bias with me during my Wikipedia experience I let my fear of normative internet behaviors, not normative Wikipedian behavior, dictate my participation. The online prevalence of rude behavior such as the use of phrases like RTFM, or "read the fucking manual", caused me to ignore the prominently displayed and reiterated policy of assuming good faith and instead fear retribution from the usual internet trolls.

Conclusion
Overall, uniquely committed Wikipedians and extensive community guidelines, policies and norms turned me off somewhat to Wikipedia. In restrospect, however, I discovered that, as someone who has grown up online, I associated these highly committed members and extensive lists of rules with the hostile users and environments I’m used to seeing in online communities. I experienced no backlash on my own Wikipedia article's talk page, and received very few interactions from other users in general. One partial solution to my initial problem could be to decrease the barriers to participation for new users, particularly female users who make up only 13% of Wikipedia editors.

I once heard an online community analyst liken this problem to being naked in a pool. New users are expected to participate, but the form of participation that Wikipedia is asking of them is an all-or-nothing situation. It's similar to being at a pool party with a group of people you don't know, and being told that you all have to get in the pool naked. There are very few forms of participation on Wikipedia that let users "test the water". This suggestion also aligns closely with Kraut and Resnick's idea for encouraging contribution in online communities. They said, "Simple requests lead to more compliance than do lengthy or complex ones for decisions about which members do not care strongly.” By creating more obvious and less risky opportunities for participation, new Wikipedians can experience the community without first getting naked in front of its 20 million users.

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